The
Berkeley concertos sound especially vital in these thoroughly
engaging and brilliantly engineered performances. If I fail
sometimes in my Lyrita reviews to comment on the standard
of the CD remastering let me just add here that it lacks
for nothing and that the original tapes sound as well as
one could possibly wish, given that they were superb in the
first place.

The
B flat concerto was written for Colin Horsley and its premiere
came at a Prom in August 1948 when Basil Cameron conducted
the LSO. Certain qualities will strike the ear immediately – the
clear, clean wind writing and the increasingly effusive Rachmaninovian
hues that are generated. It’s a fully-fledged and highly
successful Romantic concerto, eloquently extrovert, assured
in supportive orchestration and allowing the soloist plenty
of moments of drama and crunching chordal writing. As I listened
to David Wilde’s tremendously impressive playing I did think
of Horsley – a majestic player in his own right – but still
more of Benno Moiseiwitsch. It would have been just his kind
of contemporary concerto – full of romantic gesture and technical
assurance. But note too the little “pop” tunes that Berkeley
infiltrates in to the piano and high wind writing at the
end of the first movement.

Such writing for winds,
agile, lyric, reappears in the slow movement where the lazy
drift of the writing wanders between indolent reflection
and a certain brass-activated assertion. The finale opens
in rather frivolously style with a sportive Poulencian profile.
The pawky and the dramatic writing meet in exciting and vibrant
skirls and the whole thing is realised here with complete
panache and perception.

The Concerto for Two Pianos
and Orchestra was written a year later in a Henry Wood Concerts
Society commission for Phyllis Sellick and Cyril Smith. Cast
in two movements this time - with the second a Theme and
Variations – it’s the longer work by some way. It has moments
of insouciant drama for the pianists but doesn’t neglect
a bristly, brass led profile either. It’s a hard work to
characterise – French models are undeniable, there’s something
neo-classical about some elements, and there’s a strange
feeling of displaced Martinů about other parts as well.
The stentorian percussive punctuation points are certainly
striking.

The
second movement utilises Bobby Shaftoe and the hymn Westminster
Abbey (adapted by Purcell). The opening string writing
is luscious and finely sustained in this performance. Variation
four, an andante, introduces a note of withdrawal
and reflectiveness – the stasis eloquently drawn out through
string figures. Variation six is almost Rawsthornian – listen
to the flutter-tongue flute’s vehemence. The seventh is a
waltz and the eleventh has a satisfying arch to it, romantic
in feel and reminiscent of the Rachmaninovian writing of
the earlier concerto. Regrettably the variations are not
separately banded.

Berkeley
holds the serious and the lighter sides of his musical nature
in fine equipoise in these valuable, indeed laudable readings.

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